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Andy was not a movie-goer. His routine was to walk to the Beaufort Mechanics Institute library and borrow a good book, perhaps an Agatha Christie mystery, and bring it home to read in his favourite armchair. This quiet escape into a book had become a habit when he served in India, and had helped sustain him as a Prisoner of War in Germany.

So it was quite unusual when Andy decided to go to the pictures. It was 1959 and he wanted to see ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’.

The movie was showing at the Regent Theatre in Ballarat.

Travelling from Beaufort to see the movie took a bit of organising. Andy telephoned his grandson Robert in Ballarat and asked him to make the arrangements. As well as the seat reservations at the Regent, Robert needed to book tickets for the Beaufort-Ballarat train.

Robert took the train to Beaufort, stayed overnight at the Duncan home, then travelled back to Ballarat with his grandfather.

Their seats were in the dress circle, near the front and on the aisle, so that Andy could get up and move about, if need be. The film was over two and a half hours long, and Andy had not been in a cinema for at least twenty years.

It is a gripping war story of outstanding personal courage, and undoubtedly one of the outstanding films of the past year.

It is however, emotionally exhausting, reviving after more than a decade of peace the stark realities of jungle warfare.

Extract from The Canberra Times, 5 February 1958

Andy seemed a little shaken when he left the theatre. Perhaps it was partly because his first Technicolor cinema experience was overwhelming, but the film must have brought his own Prisoner of War memories to the surface.

He did not say much, except to admire Alec Guiness’ portrayal of the British colonel. This character, an officer who refuses to allow his officers to work even though it means solitary confinement and punishment, must have resonated with Andy, who had refused to work for the Germans in 1918.

Boxing Day 1918. Leith dockyard. A pipe band played as the returning POWs walked down the gangplank and onto the dock, where they were greeted by local dignitaries and army officers. Some of the men noted with disappointment that the dock gates were locked and the locals kept away. The enthusiastic public parades that had welcomed arrivals a month earlier were missing.

A letter from King George V was read out

The Queen joins me in welcoming you on your release from the miseries & hardships, which you have endured with so much patience and courage.

During these many months of trial, the early rescue of our gallant Officers & Men from the cruelties of their captivity has been uppermost in our thoughts.

We are thankful that this longed for day has arrived, & that back in the old Country you will be able once more to enjoy the happiness of a home & to see good days among those who anxiously look for your return.

On Scottish soil once more, Andy was tantalisingly close to Ayr and his childhood home. But after a hot breakfast in a dockside warehouse he entrained for Ripon in Yorkshire. As the train left the waterfront, Andy probably saw people waving and cheering from a distance. Despite having been locked out of the docks, locals lined the railway tracks to welcome the prisoners home.

A lady worker of the Victorian League stands on the platform with two buckets, distributing fruit and cigarettes through an open window in the train carriage. Australian War Memorial collection D00175

At Ripon Andy underwent further medical examination and was interviewed about his time as a prisoner of war. Once the debrief was completed, he was granted leave until 30 January. On 29 January Andy reported to Headquarters with an injury to his middle left finger. He was admitted to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, where he stayed until 10 February.

Notification of Andy’s repatriation to London. South Australian Red Cross Information Bureau records 1916-1919. Digitised by The State Library of South Australia SRG 76/1/7574

It wasn’t too long before news of Andy’s freedom reached Jane Duncan in Beaufort. On 16 January 1919 the Barrier Miner newspaper reported

Mrs. Duncan, of Ararat-road, Beaufort (Victoria), writes to “The Miner” stating that she has been informed by the military authorities that her husband, Warrant-Officer Andrew Stewart Duncan, who is well known in Broken Hill, and who was captured by the Germans on March 1, 1918, and has since been a prisoner of war, has been released, and arrived in London, quite well in health, on December 26. In a message to his wife W.O. Duncan wishes the members of his R.A.O.B Lodge and all other friends a happy, and prosperous new year.

Upon discharge from hospital Andy was granted 44 days paid leave in England. This was the ‘Anzac leave’ granted to 1914 enlistees. There is no record of how Andy spent his furlough in England. It would be nice to think he visited family in Ayr, seeing his parents again one last time (his father John would die in 1922; his mother Elizabeth in 1927).

Jane did not know where her husband was. On 11 March 1919 she wrote an anxious letter to the army –

I received your notification informing me that the above named soldier had been released from Germany and arrived in England (London) on the 26.12.1918 and was quite well, for this information I was very pleased to receive in January from you, but Dear Sir, I have had no news from himself since his arrival in England for which seems a very strange thing and I wish you to kindly give me some information of his whereabouts, as I have been waiting for news from him every day

On 12 May Andy finally embarked for home on board HMAT Soudan. It was very different from the 1914 voyage, with training drills and fatigues replaced by reading in the YMCA library on board and by regular concerts.

Troops on the promenade deck of the HMT Kildonan Castle returning to Australia. The decks presented this appearance practically all day long.Australian War Memorial collection J00172

The Barrier Miner newspaper reported Andy’s arrival in Australia

Warrant-Officer A. S. Duncan (1057) [sic], 10th Battalion, arrived in Melbourne on June 29th last, after four years and nine months’ service, having been a prisoner for the last twelve months.

Jane was at Port Melbourne to welcome him. She had written a flurry of letters to the Defence Department about Andy’s return, to secure a train pass to Melbourne and to ask for Andy’s battalion colours. It appears she was instrumental in arranging for him to disembark at Melbourne rather than returning to Adelaide.

It is easy to imagine Jane anxiously scanning the arriving ship and khaki uniforms for the violet and blue colour patch and for Andy’s face. It is not so easy to imagine the overwhelming mix of emotions that Jane and Andy felt as they embraced for the first time in so long.

Waiting for a glimpse of their loved ones.Australian War Memorial collection H11576

Andy Duncan finally left Springhirsch POW camp on 15 December 1918. It had been five long weeks since the Armistice was signed.

The men paraded at 8:30am ready to march to the train station, but there was no move out due some difficulty with the train. They were told to parade again in the afternoon, that there might be a train at 5pm.

Marching orders came at 4pm and the men set out eagerly. A large crowd of local women and children had gathered at the camp gates, hoping for a farewell hand-out of biscuits and food parcels. The men obliged as best they could.

Arriving at the station they met further delay: there was no train. How did Andy feel, confronted with another day of false starts? How did he manage the anxious and desperate men in his charge?

The train finally arrived. At 7pm the ex-POWs were loaded onto trucks for an uncomfortable overnight trip to the port of Warnemünde on the Baltic Sea.

From Warnemünde they sailed for Aarhus in Denmark. It was a good voyage on calm seas, with plenty of food to eat.

On 17 December the men arrived in Aarhus to cheering and songs of welcome from the locals. As the ships for transport to England had not yet arrived, the men entrained and travelled to Viborg and the Hald lazaret (hospital camp). Ironically, after being freed from Springhirsch they were confined initially to the hospital, quarantined due to the 1918 influenza epidemic.

On arrival we were shown to our billets; nice rooms with beds and nice white sheets which looked too good for us in our state. After we went to dinner and had some kind of porridge and stew after it, with beer, very sweet. In the afternoon we had a nice bath, then tea and got to bed very soon after as we got very little sleep since leaving our prison camp

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 17 December 1918

Hald lazaret near Viborg, Denmark

Andy stayed at Hald for 6 days. At about 7am on 23 December he left Hald and entrained again for the trip back to Aarhus. A large number of locals turned out at Viborg station to farewell the men, giving them cigarettes.

At Aarhus Andy boarded the S.S. Primula. Mid-morning the ship set sail for England, cautiously navigating its way through the Baltic Sea minefields. This time the sea was rough, and a number of men spent the voyage with their heads in buckets.

As the Primula passed the coast of Norway the men were given a medical inspection and clothes. Late on Christmas night the ship arrived at the Firth of Forth and the following morning Andy disembarked at Leith.

In early November 1918 German revolutionary soldiers beneath a red flag visited Springhirsch POW camp. They threw the gates open and invited the prisoners to leave.

The Regimental Sergeant Majors in the camp visited the bunkhouses and reminded the men that the war was not yet finished and it was not safe outside the wire. In the event of the German guards leaving the camp, the men were to remain in the compound.

Jerry L. Cpl. told us the armistice was accepted and it’s great excitement here

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 7 November 1918

On 8 November confirmation came that the armistice had been signed. The Regimental Sergeant Majors’ prediction came to pass: the sentries disappeared and one of the German officers shot himself.

All prisoners in the punishment cells were released. There was no restriction on the men’s movements, and no lights-out. Soon the only parades were head-counts.

Exercise drills ceased but football games were played daily. Camp concerts, cancelled previously by the Commandant in a fit of pique, began again. The band played The King publicly for the first time. The men sang, no doubt boisterously and to the discomfort of the remaining German soldiers.

On 11 November the men had the terms of the armistice read to them. Rumours were soon circulating that the men would be marching out, two companies at a time, for Holland and a ship back to Blighty.

The concert held on 17 November was the last, as the men expected to move out within the week. There were rumours of ships waiting in Hamburg harbour to transport the POWs home.

Jerry meals very much better now than when we much needed it

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 10 November 1918

In anticipation of leaving the camp, food rations were dispersed more liberally. The commissary stores were being run down; men were less frugal with the contents of their Red Cross parcels.

Then word came that there would be no move out until the end of November. This caused unrest in the camp. Some NCOs absconded. Rumour had it that these men were arrested in Hamburg, attempting to stow away on ships bringing food into Germany.

[The POWs] in their wild desire to return to England had become quite unmanageable

Ferdinand Hansen An open letter to an English officer and incidentally to the English people

On 30 November British officers visited the camp and addressed the men at the request of the camp commandant. The men were told to be patient, that every effort was being made to return them to England as soon as possible.

Did Andy Duncan step outside the camp while waiting for orders to move out? Other POWs did, enjoying a kind of freedom by exploring the nearby towns and villages of Kaltenkirchen, Lentföhrden and Barmstedt.

A lot of the men go to Hamburg; they get the money by selling soap, cocoa, tea, etc.

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 6 December 1918

On 8 December Andy would have learned of a planned move out in the next ten days. After all the rumours and false starts would this really be his last week in Springhirsch camp?

Featured image: END OF THE WAR. GERMANY SIGNS ARMISTICE. (1918, 12 November) Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW), p. 2. Newspaper article found in Trove and reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Australia.

While prisoners held deep inside Germany may not have had any indication that the war was coming to an end, the Springhirsch men heard rumours regularly. Prisoner arrivals, visiting priests, newspapers stolen while on fatigues to the train station, and a friendly German guard all provided the men with scuttlebutt about the progress of the war.

When Andy Duncan arrived at Springhirsch in August 1918 new rumours were being whispered almost weekly.

By the start of October war news was coming in with increasing speed and accuracy. The men were trying not to get their hopes up.

We heard very good news today, if it’s all true. The Allies have captured the whole of the Belgian coast […] Germany has asked for an armistice as they are beaten.

Diary of Sergeant A.E. Mead. Extract of entry for 22 October 1918

On 1 November a German guard told the prisoners that the war would be over “for sure” within the month. It was not long before the prison guards formed a revolutionary Soldiers Council and assumed joint control of the camp with the commandant.

The Soldiers’ Council […] decreed that Warrant Officer Matz be given his walking papers, because, as we are informed, he had long been obnoxious to the men

Ferdinand Hansen An open letter to an English officer and incidentally to the English people

It is tempting to think that Warrant Officer Matz is the camp interpreter who was a key antagonist of the prisoners.

The signs were that the war would be over any day, but when would the news come, and how would the men get home?

At Springhirsch POW camp punishments were wide-ranging and often capriciously decided –

Men were sent on fatigues to fetch the guards’ food supplies from the railway station. Without horses they had to push the van for miles to Lentföhrden. Along the way they took any opportunity to scrounge vegetables from roadside farms and pocket food from the German supplies. Men caught stealing guards’ bread had their own bread ration withheld for four days.

The Commandant stopped the issue of Red Cross packets because no prisoners would volunteer to fetch bread from the station. The men were made to parade, seemingly until volunteers stepped forward. Finally 50 men volunteered, but the men did not move until the Commandant agreed to start issuing packets again.

“Strafe parades” were called with short notice, sometimes twice a day. The men had to parade and display their towels, blankets or mattresses. If it rained during the parade the men returned to their bunks with sodden bedding.

Even the relatively inconsequential penalties were part of a constant effort to break the prisoners down –

The Sergeant Majors were shut out of their bunkhouse for a day for not removing a stove as ordered.

In late August 1918 all cricket and football was stopped because too many windows had been broken. The Germans demanded that the prisoners pay for the damage – not just for the broken windows adjacent to the sports area, but for all broken windows throughout the camp.

The games soon resumed. Two weeks later a football game was stopped and the ball confiscated, seemingly because the prisoners were enjoying themselves too much. The guards claimed that the shouting and laughing were upsetting the camp’s neighbours. Sergeant A.E. Mead noted drily that there were only two houses within a mile of the camp.

The prisoners had formed a band and purchased instruments. The Commandant asked the band to play in the camp square, but the band refused. The Commandant cancelled the evening concert as a consequence.

It seems that as numbers in the camp grew, arrest and confinement in the punishment cells became more common. Perhaps this was a way of managing the shortage of beds in the crowded bunkhouses.

Men were given 14 or 21 days ‘in the jug’ for standing or sitting during morning exercise, or for making a fire for cooking or warmth.

The German camp interpreter was singled out as a key antagonist, someone who would find any excuse to put a man in the cells on bread and water.

After three months in Limburg I went to Parchim and from there was sent to Springhesch [Springhirsch]. The latter is a “strafe” camp for N.C.O.s. Living conditions here, unspeakably disgusting.

“Strafe” was army slang for “punish” and strafe camps were designed to punish NCOs who would not volunteer for work. After the war the Aberdeen Daily Journal reported that Springhirsch NCOs

… were specially interesting because of the fact that theirs was a strafe camp for “non-com.’s” who persisted in the right to be exempt from work. Some of the “non-com.’s” stated that they had been originally in different camps but were concentrated at Springhurst because of their refusal. The camp was insanitary, and, as a matter of fact had been condemned before they were sent to it.

The previous Russian internees had been relocated and the camp closed because of the appalling conditions, but it was reopened “for the benefit of the British NCO’s”.

Springhirsch camp was in the Province of Schleswig-Holstein, north of Hamburg near Kaltenkirchen. Prisoners’ recollections of the camp in the second half of 1918 were that it was cold, wet and windy. Fellow prisoner Sergeant A.E. Mead noted that there was scarcely a day without rain. Thunderstorms and heavy downpours were common. As winter neared icy winds would blow across the plain from the North Sea or the Baltic Sea, leaving each prisoner shivering beneath his two threadbare blankets. On 15 August Andy wrote from Springhirsch

Was taken prisoner in a raid on 1/3/18. I was sent to Dulmen where I met most of the men captured on the Somme offensive. From Dulmen was sent along with other N.C.O’s to Limburg, from there to Parchim and then on to this place which is an N.C.O’s Camp called Springhirsch. I was not wounded badly enough to go into hospital, only a few scats from bursting shells – they soon healed up and at the present time I am quite well, only a bit below my normal weight but I will soon pick that up now that the food packets have started to come along. Have also received my uniform and underclothing.

Red Cross parcels were finally reaching him. He probably had his German-issue blue POW uniform by this time.

Cottbus, Germany. c. 1918. Formal group portrait of Australian prisoners of war (POW). The men are wearing a mixture of Australian Army uniform and a darker uniform and peaked hats issued by the Germans. They have been permitted to continue wearing their rank stripes, rising sun badges and awards. Australian War Memorial collection P02318.001

Featured image: Detail from historical map of Provinz Schleswig-Holstein 1905. Source: Bibliothek allgemeinen und praktischen Wissens für Militäranwärter Band I, 1905 / Deutsches Verlaghaus Bong & Co Berlin * Leipzig * Wien * Stuttgart. [ONLINE] Available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org. This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.